Page "Almoravid dynasty" Paragraph 5

Contemporaries frequently referred to them as the al-mulathimun (" the veiled ones ", from litham, Arabic for " veil ").

The Almoravids veiled themselves below the eyes ( see tagelmust ), a custom they adapted from southern Sanhaja Berbers ( as can still be seen among the modern Tuareg people ), but unusual further north.

Although practical for the desert dust, the Almoravids insisted on wearing the veil everywhere, as a badge of " foreignness " in urban settings, partly as a way of emphasizing their puritan credentials.

It served as the uniform of the Almoravids, and under their rule, sumptuary laws forbade anybody else from wearing the veil, thereby making it the distinctive dress of the ruling class ( the later Almohads made a point of mocking the Almoravid veil as symbolic of effeminacy and decadence.